Browsed byCategory: Otaku Academy

I found out about Astral Project via this post at MangaBlog, and I’m glad I did. Because even if this story didn’t have call girls, cults, and free jazz beats that literally pull you outside your body, it has one very special thing going for it: it makes me feel like I’m back in Japan.

I just finished a new post over at FPS about the recent developments at the intersection of fandom and the law, specifically whether anime and manga featuring children in explicit situations still counts as child pornography. (In Canada, it already does.) The argument for this definition states that even though the images are drawn and rendered rather than photographed and filmed, they still incite arousal on the part of the pedophile, and therefore encourage criminal behaviour. The argument against it…

This morning, Mr. Ashby dreamt that Sarah Palin announced her hatred of anime as a plank of the Republican platform. She especially despised Bleach, decrying its violence, because (she said) her son was a great fan of the series and it had influenced him to do terrible things. Mr. Ashby promptly wrote Track Palin an email saying: “Why should all the other otaku have to suffer because you can’t stand up to your mom? What are you, some kind of…

Madeline Ashby…

She has worked with Intel Labs, the Institute for the Future, SciFutures, Nesta, Data & Society, The Atlantic Council, the ASU Center for Science and the Imagination, Changeist, and others. Her essays have appeared at BoingBoing, io9, WorldChanging, Creators Project, Arcfinity, MISC Magazine, and FutureNow. She is the author of the Machine Dynasty novels. Her novel Company Town was a Canada Reads finalist.